Mt. Diwata, the "golden mountain," is one of the largest sources of gold in the Philippines and possibly the world. (Diwata means nymph or fairy goddess, a throwback to the animist past when Filipinos believed diwata guarded mountains, rivers and streams.) Since the gold rush here began in the early 1980s, mines on the mountain have produced more than 2.7 million ounces of gold, according to government reports in the Philippine press. The Blacksmith Institute, which monitors mining around the world, estimates that $1.8 billion worth of gold remains in the ground. Large mining companies extract most of the gold, but the small-scale miners have their own 1,800-acre reserve with Diwalwal at its center.
At the height of the Mt. Diwata gold boom, more than 100,000 people lived and worked in Diwalwal. Today, the town is home to an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 miners and their families, including thousands of children, who are constantly breathing mercury fumes and dust from the ore processing that goes on all around them.
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